This invention relates to a surgical suturing machine with a needle connected to a suture thread and driven in an oscillating manner, said needle cooperating with a thread catcher, and with two clamping elements, between which the edges of the tissue to be sewn are clamped and whose clamping zone is traversed by the needle transversely to the path of the suture.
A surgical suturing machine of this type is described in German OS No. 30 18 892. It comprises an oscillating needle through whose eye a suture thread is pulled. To sew tissue edges together, the latter are clamped between two clamping elements and held in this fashion. The two clamping parts are designed as straight rails connected together at one end by a hinge and held together by means of an arterial clamp or the like when the tissue edges are held together at the other end. The tissue edges are then rotated and aligned with their inner sides abutting one another between the two clamping elements which have their edges facing the surface of the body, i.e. in the clamping zone. The clamping elements comprise lengthwise slots which overlap one another and run parallel to the clamping zone, through which slots the needle passes to penetrate the tissue. The needle, driven in an oscillating fashion, then traverses the clamping zone transversely to the path of the suture. The needle cooperates with a thread catcher, producing the suture. When two tissue edges are sewn together, the latter must first be clamped between the clamping elements. To produce the suture, the part of the surgical suturing machine with the needle and the thread catcher must be placed on the clamping elements. To make the suture, the part of the surgical suturing machine with the needle and the thread catcher must be advanced by hand on the clamping elements along the clamping zone after each passage of the needle through the tissue edges. This does not produce an overlapping suture; rather, there is only a series of individual passages of the needle through the aligned tissue edges and, when the suture is smoothed, a row of lock stitches is left on either side of the wound. In addition, no protection against damage to the thread is possible and the suture may open inadverently. In addition, only sutures that run in a straight line can be produced, in other words, only tissue edges which run in a straight line can be sutured together. The length of a suture to be prepared is determined by the clamping elements or by the lengthwise slots in the clamping elements. To make sutures that are longer than the clamping elements, most of the surgical suturing machine must be removed from the clamping elements, the clamping elements loosened, and the tissueedges still to be sutured clamped between the clamping elements. This procedure is tedious and prolongs the operation.